All I want is to make a difference,

Like the man who fought

For Sudanese orphans,

Or one who gives a vagrant

A dollar and a sandwich.

 All I want is to make a difference;

Words are my feathers, hope

Lifts my wings, and wind holds me.

All I want is to make a difference.

I call my elderly father every day.

I send my friends care in pictures.

All I want is to make a difference.

I bake bread. I follow the moon.

I take what I know and frame

It so others might begin to see

Whatever they need.

All I want is to make a difference.

Children bring smiles. I keep

Play-doh and trinkets in my trunk

Because something small

Can be big when you’re little.

All I want is to make a difference.

The divine works in paradox.

I question my foundation.

I shake my fears

To find tears and anguish.

I want to make a difference.

I take judgment and put it on

A shelf with pain so I can gain

What the hurt is telling me.

I want to make a difference.

Age takes an odd form at 53.

I don’t feel older until I see youth

In a 25-year-old:

Fresh innocence, a sunflower

Reaching high to the light.

I want to make a difference.

I know I do.  Yet I see the tragic

And my heart ripples.

There’s little I can do.

I make a difference, with every tear

And every smile. I do make a difference.

Yet some day I won’t even be a memory.

Some day I’ll be a light that never

Knew my soul shined. The spirit

Does not need to know. It already does.

Maybe I am different but it does not matter.

I trust whatever I call God to know.

I am a full time yoga teacher, trained at City Fitness in Washington, DC, and Willow Street Yoga Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. I have been writing poetry since I was 9 years old. Poetry is my first love and yoga continues to feed my heart. I write because I love it. I teach because I love it. I tell my students all the time: do it because you can. That works for me. I believe in creating opportunity. I believe in helping my self and others. I think faith is the most important gift of life, because when we lose everything else we still have that in our heart. I believe the natural state of being is happiness, or bliss, or Ananda. Life is a celebration. Poetry and yoga help me celebrate.

My blog and website: Edie Yoga

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Editor: Kate Bartolotta

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